polarbear22

rjquillin wrote:Part of the set-up and operations crew. Something I do when there are larger shows in the area, I tend to avoid the smaller ones.
I've been shooting since the early '80's.

Hopefully I'm not taking the train too far off the tracks, but I thought some here may be interested.

Hell no. This is very interesting. Really cool. It would be even more fun if I could see the show after all this behind the scenes stuff. Hope you have a great show, and great weather. All the 4th shows are being postponed here due to rain. Connected to Arthur.

ddeuddeg

polarbear22 wrote:And I feel like "who doesn't like fireworks?" Though I am sure there are some, particularly because of the loud noises.

They can be pretty troubling for some veterans with PTSD. Especially the (in NY, illegal) street variety. When you're at a scheduled show, you expect the noise, but when they occur in your own neighborhood at random times, without warning, they remind those who have spent time in combat of what they went through there.

Always keep a bottle of Champagne in the fridge for special occasions. Sometimes the special occasion is that you've got a bottle of Champagne in the fridge. - Hester Browne
Filmmaker/winemaker Francis Ford Coppola says his two professions are almost the same and that each depends on source material and takes a lot of time to perfect.
The big difference: "Today's winemakers still worry about quality."

MarkDaSpark

Someone has to put WD's kids thru college, but why does it have to be me! *This post is for purposes of enabling only, and does not constitute any promise of helping pay for said enabling. It does indicate willingness to assist in drinking said wine.

MarkDaSpark

polarbear22 wrote:And I feel like "who doesn't like fireworks?" Though I am sure there are some, particularly because of the loud noises.

As well as combat vets, it's also bad for our 4 footed friends.

Quick thought ... back in the "good old days" of personal fireworks, did our pets have as many issues with the noises as now?

We all used to go out into the street (well, us kids were on the sidewalk while Dad lit them), and I don't remember our dog at the time having as many issues as our pets do now.

Edit: And yes, the pics are interesting and cool!

x20

Someone has to put WD's kids thru college, but why does it have to be me! *This post is for purposes of enabling only, and does not constitute any promise of helping pay for said enabling. It does indicate willingness to assist in drinking said wine.

MarkDaSpark

Dear MA Supporters: The Boston Globe would like to interview a few MA wine lovers about your frustrations over the current ban on direct shipments. If you are interested in helping, please email us at shackles@freethegrapes.org with your name (and just confirm that you live in MA). Thanks!

Not that anyone in MA probably still looks here (due to the shipping restrictions), but if you know of anyone in MA, let them know!

x20

Someone has to put WD's kids thru college, but why does it have to be me! *This post is for purposes of enabling only, and does not constitute any promise of helping pay for said enabling. It does indicate willingness to assist in drinking said wine.

MarkDaSpark

bhodilee wrote:my dog could care less about fireworks or thunder. Slam a car door though and he'll bark for five minutes

x20

Someone has to put WD's kids thru college, but why does it have to be me! *This post is for purposes of enabling only, and does not constitute any promise of helping pay for said enabling. It does indicate willingness to assist in drinking said wine.

ddeuddeg

Not that anyone in MA probably still looks here (due to the shipping restrictions), but if you know of anyone in MA, let them know!

I read recently about some pending action to ease those restrictions. Perhaps that could account for the Globe's interest.

Always keep a bottle of Champagne in the fridge for special occasions. Sometimes the special occasion is that you've got a bottle of Champagne in the fridge. - Hester Browne
Filmmaker/winemaker Francis Ford Coppola says his two professions are almost the same and that each depends on source material and takes a lot of time to perfect.
The big difference: "Today's winemakers still worry about quality."

ddeuddeg

rjquillin wrote:Hopefully I'm not taking the train too far off the tracks, but I thought some here may be interested.

IIRC, the pub is intended to be a place with no tracks from which to diverge. Unless TT finds something to object to. Speaking of whom, is she on vacation? Haven't seen her posts lately.

Always keep a bottle of Champagne in the fridge for special occasions. Sometimes the special occasion is that you've got a bottle of Champagne in the fridge. - Hester Browne
Filmmaker/winemaker Francis Ford Coppola says his two professions are almost the same and that each depends on source material and takes a lot of time to perfect.
The big difference: "Today's winemakers still worry about quality."

MarkDaSpark

Shirt.Woot is getting sloppy ... 2nd shipment missing a shirt. And of course it was the USA shirt.

x20

Someone has to put WD's kids thru college, but why does it have to be me! *This post is for purposes of enabling only, and does not constitute any promise of helping pay for said enabling. It does indicate willingness to assist in drinking said wine.

polarbear22

Fun times lately. Took five weeks for our AC company to finally get a repairman here. And he pronounced the system dead. Got one estimate to replace about $7000. Cat did not make it home one night, but found him the next morning. Thought he was dragging from old age. No, true to his name, Rascal has five broken ribs. Nice kitty pain killer, and he is doing OK. Still hasn't eaten though. The dog, Dagger, injured a leg last Saturday chasing a deer in the back yard. He has recovered pretty well, and only a slight limp left. Pretty strong T-storms the last couple of nights. No lost power, but strike within a quarter mile blew out the cable. So sleeping on the couch downstairs for a few nights until AC is restored, or portable unit from woot arrives.

Helluva week, but nothing remains life threatening. So time to drink up and fuggataboutit.

InFrom

polarbear22 wrote:Fun times lately. Took five weeks for our AC company to finally get a repairman here. And he pronounced the system dead. Got one estimate to replace about $7000. Cat did not make it home one night, but found him the next morning. Thought he was dragging from old age. No, true to his name, Rascal has five broken ribs. Nice kitty pain killer, and he is doing OK. Still hasn't eaten though. The dog, Dagger, injured a leg last Saturday chasing a deer in the back yard. He has recovered pretty well, and only a slight limp left. Pretty strong T-storms the last couple of nights. No lost power, but strike within a quarter mile blew out the cable. So sleeping on the couch downstairs for a few nights until AC is restored, or portable unit from woot arrives.

Helluva week, but nothing remains life threatening. So time to drink up and fuggataboutit.

Happy fourth everyone. Enjoy the long weekend.

Wow, such adventures! Hope the 2- and 4-legged members of your household have a restful weekend.

rjquillin

Ok, I can do some additional photos from today.
Started out as media day; I think at least four or five TV stations graced us with their presence, which of course slows things down to below a crawl.

We had left out most of the finale fill product in sealed boxes and arrived to the below.

Unpacked and placed, left, center and right things began to shape up as below.

The long skinny things are candles, that arrived today and were an 'add' that required changes to what was nearly finished.

The cubical boxes are those things called 'cakes' and add low level color, noise, crackle and provide a base for the higher aerial shells, but some don't do all that bad on their own.

After all is wired, it needs to be checked for continuity; that is looking for product where product should be and insuring there is an electrical connection to the electric match to ignite the lift charges. This is done with what we call a Field Controller, below.

The field controller allows, obviously, for testing as well as editing show cues; when we have a bad circuit and need to move it to another. From a local to the barge receiver, we receive an FM sub-carrier from which we extract SMPTE timecode that syncs to a local clock in the FC, together they provide shot timing to the soundtrack and timecode that comes from a ProTools station. Both the audio and TC are analog fed to local station equipment and they uplink via an ISDN line to their studios.
Locally we also have backup source devices for both the soundtrack and SMPTE should the computer crash, and each firing location has a backup FC running in parallel should it go tango-uniform. Only takes a few seconds for the changeover if necessary.

I kinda miss the 'good ole days' when we manually lit the quick-match with a road flare; things were much simpler and it was all quite up-close and personal.

And of course we had the visit from a Fire Marshall that felt compelled to find at least a couple of things he wanted changed to justify his presence.

What we thought was going to be a short day, hopefully out a bit after lunch, lasted until nearly 16:30. And our call for tomorrow, originally scheduled for 16:00 is now 13:30. Good thing we had some extra time allocated.

There is also another barge moored by ours. They just got the racks delivered yesterday and as mid afternoon had begun nothing. Really glad I'm not on that crew. They're gonna be busting it tomorrow with absolutely no time for error correction.

InFrom

I have no idea what some of the things you wrote even mean, but getting the inside scoop and "before" pics of a huge fireworks setup, along with the contemplation of the result, has been a complete delight. Thanks for taking the time to share it with us.

rjquillin

InFrom wrote:I have no idea what some of the things you wrote even mean, but getting the inside scoop and "before" pics of a huge fireworks setup, along with the contemplation of the result, has been a complete delight. Thanks for taking the time to share it with us.

Well, if even only a few more like than don't, it's great to share what I've taken for granted for years now.
Coherent answers will be attempted for questions asked, as long as I don't have to count decimal.

chipgreen

rjquillin wrote:Well, if even only a few more like than don't, it's great to share what I've taken for granted for years now.
Coherent answers will be attempted for questions asked, as long as I don't have to count decimal.

No questions, just enjoying the pre-display display! Thanks for sharing....

polarbear22

InFrom wrote:I have no idea what some of the things you wrote even mean, but getting the inside scoop and "before" pics of a huge fireworks setup, along with the contemplation of the result, has been a complete delight. Thanks for taking the time to share it with us.

With you completely. Really enjoy the pics and explanation, and didn't understand a lot of it. I also understand why an engineer is needed, and not just some guy off the street.

mommadeb1

Mommy bragging time.....my son's team won in the national competition in their invention division for TSA (technology)!!!!!! The beat out About 100 teams! We r having fun here in DC. TH the firework pics are really cool!

InFrom

mommadeb1 wrote:Mommy bragging time.....my son's team won in the national competition in their invention division for TSA (technology)!!!!!! The beat out About 100 teams! We r having fun here in DC. TH the firework pics are really cool!

rjquillin

mommadeb1 wrote:Mommy bragging time.....my son's team won in the national competition in their invention division for TSA (technology)!!!!!! The beat out About 100 teams! We r having fun here in DC. TH the firework pics are really cool!

Great parents, great kids. Congrats, and pass them along as well.
Best I ever did in our city "Science Fair" was an honorable mention.
To take National is quite the accomplishment.

MarkDaSpark

otolith wrote:Ordered some woot shirts guaranteed to be here by the 4th. Got a tracking number in an email with an estimated delivery of the 7th. Fail!

I only got 1/2 the shirts I ordered. Shirt.Woot! isn't meeting expectations!

x20

Someone has to put WD's kids thru college, but why does it have to be me! *This post is for purposes of enabling only, and does not constitute any promise of helping pay for said enabling. It does indicate willingness to assist in drinking said wine.

bahwm

mommadeb1 wrote:Mommy bragging time.....my son's team won in the national competition in their invention division for TSA (technology)!!!!!! The beat out About 100 teams! We r having fun here in DC. TH the firework pics are really cool!

Congrats to you, your hubby an your son and his team! Awesome work to take nationals! How exciting! Pass the congrats on! :whee!:

May our love be like good wine, grow stronger as it grows older. ~ Old English Toast

Someone has to put WD's kids thru college, but why does it have to be me! *This post is for purposes of enabling only, and does not constitute any promise of helping pay for said enabling. It does indicate willingness to assist in drinking said wine.

bahwm

Trying to figure out what to pack for trip to Denver to visit SIL & BIL. Looks like we'll be sleeping in their camper/trailer in their driveway. I have no idea how this is going to work out. She says that BIL is going to rig something up so that it will be somewhat cooler in there. I get the feeling that it may wind up feeling like a hot house or a tuna can in the sun.

May our love be like good wine, grow stronger as it grows older. ~ Old English Toast

rjquillin

Thanks all. There has already been one fatal in TX when there was an incident with a storage container. While we (try to) handle this with care, accidents do occur.
Thanks for the wishes.
Now the video I'll try to shoot well,
likely I'll be a FAIL there.

mommadeb1

Thanks for the congrats! We watched the fireworks on the lawn in front of the Washington monument looking down on the Lincoln memorial. Talk about AWESOME!!!! We definitely need to come back..sooooo many more things to see! Hope everyone had a great and safe 4th!

rjquillin

Status:
Yes, we all survived.
Yes, the show was a success.
Yes, I got my "free" T-shirt after we finished loading the two containers per barge slightly before 03:00, as predicted, with a crew of five each barge; we had some no-shows.
Home, danced through rain locker and bed @ 04:36.
Woke at 06:03, but managed to pass out again.
Body status, pending...

I have HD video; now, to figure how to edit and post.
What do I use to manipulate AVCHD files?

tiger7610

Today is a very domestic day. It did start with seeing the stanley cup in Ithaca courtesy of Dustin Brown, and picking up CSA at the farmers market. Then firing up the smoker: had to use a match approach the electrical ignition system wasnt working. Then fighting with temperatures, but it seems to be working well for now. Also making borsch (russian beet soup) while watching soccer through a spanish stream

polarbear22

tiger7610 wrote:Today is a very domestic day. It did start with seeing the stanley cup in Ithaca courtesy of Dustin Brown, and picking up CSA at the farmers market. Then firing up the smoker: had to use a match approach the electrical ignition system wasnt working. Then fighting with temperatures, but it seems to be working well for now. Also making borsch (russian beet soup) while watching soccer through a spanish stream

We don't have the same model smoker. Mine is electric, so matches wouldn't do much.

North316

tiger7610 wrote:Today is a very domestic day. It did start with seeing the stanley cup in Ithaca courtesy of Dustin Brown, and picking up CSA at the farmers market. Then firing up the smoker: had to use a match approach the electrical ignition system wasnt working. Then fighting with temperatures, but it seems to be working well for now. Also making borsch (russian beet soup) while watching soccer through a spanish stream

cortot20

bahwm wrote:Trying to figure out what to pack for trip to Denver to visit SIL & BIL. Looks like we'll be sleeping in their camper/trailer in their driveway. I have no idea how this is going to work out. She says that BIL is going to rig something up so that it will be somewhat cooler in there. I get the feeling that it may wind up feeling like a hot house or a tuna can in the sun.

JOATMON

Yesterday we went to the Jeremiah O'Brien in San Francisco to watch the fireworks. The O'Brien is the last operating original Liberty ship, and is based in San Francisco. Their normal docking place has a fantastic viewpoint of the fireworks show, and this is the second year we did so. This year, the wind came up and it cod cold on deck! I ended up going below and buying a cap and a sweatshirt from the gift shop, and I normally don't need anything like that. The wind also brought in the low clouds. Most of the fireworks were below the cloud deck, but the high ones would soar up, we's see a glow in the cloud (most of the time white, but occasionally red or another color), and then a few sparks would fall out of the cloud. Fortunately the finale was under the cloud.

JOATMON

Today, as I stated in another thread, we drove up to Wellington to pick up a case of the Duchess. On the way there SWMBO got a phone call; her father had fallen again, and had been taken to the base hospital (he's ex Air Force and lives nearby a big active Air Force base). We did pick up the case from Wellington, and then drove out to the base hospital. Turned out to not be that serious (he'd fallen against a redwood lattice and got some in his arms, but no broken bones), and he was released. But, we did get home later than planned because of that.

MarkDaSpark

JOATMON wrote:Today, as I stated in another thread, we drove up to Wellington to pick up a case of the Duchess. On the way there SWMBO got a phone call; her father had fallen again, and had been taken to the base hospital (he's ex Air Force and lives nearby a big active Air Force base). We did pick up the case from Wellington, and then drove out to the base hospital. Turned out to not be that serious (he'd fallen against a redwood lattice and got some in his arms, but no broken bones), and he was released. But, we did get home later than planned because of that.

ummm ... ummm ..... So you're saying he'd fallen and couldn't get up?

Sorry, I tried to hold it in, and succeeded in the aforementioned thread. But when you post it again ....

Edit: And glad he's fine.

x20

Someone has to put WD's kids thru college, but why does it have to be me! *This post is for purposes of enabling only, and does not constitute any promise of helping pay for said enabling. It does indicate willingness to assist in drinking said wine.

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